The Second Duma and the Tasks of the Proletariat[1]

Written:Written on February 20 (March 5), 1907Published:Published on February 23, 1907 inRabochy, No. 2. Signed:N. Lenin.

      Published according to the newspaper text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 12,

      pages156-160.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Workers,comrades!

Theday set for the opening of the Second State Duma has arrived. The
class-conscious proletariat never believed that freedom for the people and land
for the peasants could be attained by sending petitioners to the tsar, ruler of
the gang of Black-Hundred cutthroats. The class-conscious proletariat
boycotted the Duma to warn the back ward peasant masses, who believed in the
Duma. And the story of the First Duma—the government’s mockery of
its proposals and its eventual dissolution—has shown that the
class-conscious proletariat was right, has shown that liberty cannot be attained
by peaceful means, under laws promulgated by the tsar and enforced by the Black
Hundreds.

TheSocial-Democrats advised the people to send fighters to the Second Duma, not
petitioners. The people’s faith in peaceful methods has been
shattered. That is evident from the fact that the Cadet Party, the party of
liberals, which advocated peaceful methods, suffered a crushing defeat in the
elections. This party of liberal landlords and bourgeois lawyers, which is
desirous of reconciling the Black-Hundred autocracy with popular freedom, is
entering the Second Duma with depleted forces. The Black Hundreds have gained in
strength, and now have several dozen deputies in the Duma. Much greater,
however, is the gain of the Lefts, i.e., of those who stand more or less
resolutely and consistently for revolutionary struggle as opposed to peaceful
methods.

TheSecond Duma is more Left than was the First. Its deputies include many more
      Social-Democrats, and a greater number of revolutionary democrats (the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and a section of the Trudoviks). The First Duma
      was a Duma of hopes for peaceful development. The Second Duma will be the
      scene of a sharp struggle between the Black-Hundred tsarist government and
      the representatives of the masses: the masses of proletarians, who are
      consciously striving for liberty in order to facilitate the fight for
      socialism, and the masses of the peasants, who are rising spontaneously
      against the feudal-minded landlords.

Theelections to the new Duma have shown that despite all persecution and bans,
revolutionary consciousness is spreading and gaining force among the masses of
the people. A new revolutionary wave is approaching, a new revolutionary
battle of the people for freedom.

Thisbattle will not be fought in the Duma. It will he decided by an uprising of
the proletariat, the peasantry, and the class-conscious sections of the armed
forces. It is a battle that is being brought closer to us by the entire course
of events, by the entire course of the clashes between the Left section of the
Duma, and the government and the Cadets.

Beprepared, then, workers, for events of great moment. Do not waste your
strength to no purpose. There is no need for us to hasten the denouement: let
the tsar and his Black- Hundred lackeys begin the attack. If they want to get
rid of the new Duma, they will have to attack the people, dissolve the Duma,
revoke the election law, and Launch a new series of repressions.

Letthe oppressors begin. The proletariat must keep firmly, steadily,
consistently to its task of preparing ever broader masses of the people for the
great and desperate fight for freedom. Comrade workers! We have come through the
first great encounters in the revolution: January 9, 1905, the October strike,
and the December uprising. We shall gather our forces anew for still another
advance, even more formidable and resolute than the last, when the flame of the
Left Duma shall flare up into a nation-wide conflagration. We must gather and
concentrate all our forces for the decisive battle that is impending.

Remember,comrades, that the Second Duma must inevitably lead to battle, to
      insurrection. Do not waste
your strength on trifles.

Longlive the rising of all the people for freedom!

Longlive the revolution!

Longlive international revolutionary Social-Democracy!

[1]“The Second Duma and the Tasks of the Proletariat” was
published on February 23, 1907, in the newspaperRabochy, No. 2.

Rabochy(The Worker)—anillegal Bolshevik newspaper, organ of the
district organisations of the

R.S.DL.P.in the Vyborg and Petersburg Districts
of St. Petersburg. The newspaper was published from February 13 (26), 1907, by
decision of the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. as a mass popular
organ. From April 1907 the combat organisation of the St. Petersburg Committee
of the R.S.D.L.P. participated in the publication of the paper. Lenin,
Y. M. Yaroslavsky and other Bolsheviks were contributors. At the beginning of
June 1907 its press was confiscated by the police
and publication ceased.